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The Scallywags

IN one of the most fashionable hotels at Brighton, and occupying the most expensive suite in that hotel, lived temporarily a young gentleman described in the hotel register, in an unimaginative manner, as Mr. Smith, with his secretary, Mr. Robinson. Mr. Smith's valet also accompanied him.

It is true that these names had as yet made so small an impression upon their owners that when a waiter carried to their comfortably-furnished sitting-room a telegram, and announced that it was for Mr. Smith, neither the young gentleman nor his secretary immediately answered to the name, and the one whom the waiter knew as Mr. Robinson opened it. As he was Mr. Smith's secretary, doubtless that was quite in order.

Mr. Robinson read the long wire until the waiter was out of the room, then passed it to the other.

"Does he bite, Paul?" asked Anthony, as he took it.

"I think he does," answered Paul, in his rather prim manner.

"He's going to make me rich," said Anthony. "What I love about this Ali Baba life is its glorious certainty. I was reading in the paper this morning about a fellow who held up a bank cashier and got away with two pounds and a thick ear. That's no life for a gentleman."

"No, certainly not," agreed Paul, sinking into a chair by the fire. "I saw a reference to you, by the way, in one of the papers. They call you The Mixer."

"And a jolly good title, too," said Anthony complacently. "Really, though," and his voice had a more serious note. "I am a public benefactor. In the first place, I confine my depredations to the crooks, and in the second place, I have rescued you and Sandy permanently—trust to me—from a life of drudgery: always supposing you weren't driven to a life of crime."

Paul ran his hand over his lank smooth hair.

"I don't know that I should have gone in for a life of crime," he demurred, "but I was certainly getting fed up with applying for jobs. As for Sandy, rather than go back to his dim and draughty warehouse— well, it's possible he might have taken a six shooter and held up the Bank of England. I don't know. But I certainly can say that you have not yet done anything to trouble my conscience."

"And never will, Paul," Anthony assured him. "Hasn't every gentleman I've relieved of his surplus wealth been a villain of the deepest dye?"

"They all certainly have."

"Well, Mr. Mothenstein fulfils that description, too. He has been a pretty difficult gentleman to counter. The police have been trying to get at him for years, and he is not going to be an easy job for me."

"Why not?" asked Paul, looking over the paper he had picked up.

"In the first place, Mr. Mothenstein is warned."

"About you?"

Anthony nodded.

"I have been working at him for a week," he said, "but all the time I came up against his nasty suspicious mind. In fact, you have got to realise that there isn't a crook in London who isn't on the look-out for my unassuming self."

"Perhaps if I knew what is Mr. Mothenstein's offence against society ..." suggested Paul.

"You would be nerved to lend me any assistance I may require in the pursuit of my depredations," supplemented Anthony.

"Quite so," said Paul.

"It happens that I don't require your assistance in this little matter," returned Anthony, filling his pipe as he spoke. "It's too delightfully simple. Mothenstein is an outside broker carrying on a very respectable business. He advertises pretty extensively, and gets most of his clients from those innocent people who think it is as easy to make a hundred into two hundred as it is to turn twopence into fourpence, which, as a matter of fact, it is not. Naturally, they are all shy of outside brokers, particularly as one of the journals who make a feature of looking after the interests of the investor has issued a warning against Mothenstein. But Mothenstein's first act reassures them. He writes them a long and fatherly letter, telling them that he does not think it advisable to risk all their capital in speculative investments, and, if they don't mind, he would rather deal with a much smaller sum than they propose investing. Naturally this gladdens the heart of the innocents, and fills it with joy and gratitude. And when the small investment is made, and little cheques for little profits begin to trickle in, they rise on their hind legs and bless the name of Mothenstein."

"What happens next?" asked Paul, curiously.

"The innocents write saying that they have so much confidence in Mothenstein that they would like to invest a larger sum. He writes back saying that he cannot possibly handle big accounts, because if they lost money it would lie on his conscience and keep him awake at night. He then recommends the firm of Alexander McDougal, Mackintosh & Glenstuart, an eminent firm of Scottish outside brokers, who do a conservative business at a very conservative address up North.

Paul nodded.

"The firm of Alexander, etc, being Mothenstein, I presume?"

"Got it first time," said Anthony. "This conservative firm have no scruples. They urge the confiding lamb to raise every bean, sell the wool off their backs, and put it into Waggerfontein Gold Fields, or some such stock, which is going sky high between now and Thursday of next week. And usually the poor dears fall for it, in spite of the fact that Mr. Mothenstein writes to them begging them not to be rash. Do Waggerfontein Gold Fields go up to £9:7:3? No, sir. They go down to 3d. A gloom falls upon the shorn lambs, and Mothenstein buys a new motor car."

He puffed at his pipe reflectively.

"And your intentions are?" asked Paul.

"Well," said Anthony, speaking slowly. "I will tell you the weak point in Mothenstein's scheme. He has to have a real genuine stock to off-load upon his victims. Otherwise, very naturally, he is guilty of fraud to the —th degree, and he is a stout and respectable man who has no desire to breakfast at Wandsworth off skilly au naturel. And there aren't a large number of these dud companies going. He bought up Waggerfontein Gold Fields when the shares were about 2d. net, and he has managed to off-load nearly 200,000 shares at prices between 8s. 10d. and 19s. 6d. And I've had the quiet tip that the eminent firm of Alexander, etc., are on the look-out for a new bargain—and I've found one."

He walked to his desk, unlocked it, took out a steel box, and put it on the table. When it was opened the other saw that it was full of beautifully engraved script.

"Here," said Anthony, with the air of an exhibitor, "are 200,000 shares in the West Australian Lead and Spelter Syndicate. I am sorry it is not gold, but it is the best I could get. I bought them at the rate of a penny a share, which was exactly one penny per share more than they are worth. The company's rights run out in a month's time, and the property goes back to its original owners unless a new vein is struck. As the mine is situated in the desert and has broken the hearts of its proprietors years ago, the vein is likely to remain unstruck."

"Where did you get these?" asked Paul.

"From an Australian I knew, a nice lad, who was given the shares by a man who had borrowed twenty pounds from him and couldn't pay it back. Now, the exact value of these shares nobody knows, and my scheme is to sell these to Alexander, etc., at two and sixpence per share. That will get me roughly about twenty-five thousand pounds. Alexander, etc., will jump at these shares, which aren't quoted on the Exchange, and about which nothing is known. They will be able to market them at anything from five shillings to ten shillings profit."

"Which hardly seems fair to the people who buy," demurred Paul. "Forgive me if I seem to interfere in your affairs, but I was brought up in a vicarage."

"Now if you will possess your moral soul in patience for a while, Paul! I'm telling you. The moment these shares are sold I shall write to all the financial papers, not necessarily in my own name, telling them the true state of affairs about the West Australian Lead and Spelter Syndicate. Another point is that I propose dividing the loot with my friend the Australian, who is down and out."

"Good," said Paul, approvingly, and listened whilst Anthony gave him details.

The firm of Alexander McDougal, Mackintosh & Glenstuart occupied a very small cubic area of a large and pretentious building. The manager was known as Mr. Alexander in the North, but as Mr. Mothenstein, Junior, in London. There came to this large young man, whose face was sallow and perennially damp, such an offer from a recently returned Australian that he left urgently by the night train, and breakfasted the next morning with his parent in their stately ancestral palace at Hampstead.

Mr. Mothenstein was very stout and very unemotional, but the news his son brought to him roused him to something near enthusiasm.

"I remember the shares years and years ago," he said. "They used to be quoted on the Stock Exchange."

He rose heavily and went to his limited library, which consisted of many brown volumes of the Stock Exchange year book, and took down one dated 1890 and turned the leaves.

"Yes, here they are," he said. "Capital, £300,000. Directors, h'm, ha, h'm. This fellow offers you 200,000, which means you have got control of the mine."

"Mine!" laughed his son. "That's good, Father. If there was any mine you wouldn't have them offered at two and sixpence a share."

Mr. Mothenstein, senior, turned upon his progeny with a frown.

"There's a mine," he said emphatically. "Please understand we do not deal in properties unless they exist. That would be fraud. And with fraudulent propositions I will have no truck."

"I'm sorry, guv'nor," said the youth, abashed, and pulling his face into an appropriate expression.

"Yes," Mr. Mothenstein went on, putting back the book and returning to the breakfast table. "It sounds good to me. They ask for half-a-crown. I suppose they'll take a bob a share?"

Mr. Julius Mothenstein shook his head.

"Not they," he said. "Here's the letter. Not a penny less than half-a-crown a share."

Mr. Mothenstein nodded heavily.

"Well, we want some shares," he said, "and we want them badly. All the shares of the Baltic Trading Syndicate are disposed of, and they are simply clamouring for investments."

"They are also clamouring for those bonus shares you promised them when the Waggerfontein turned out bad," said Mr. Julius significantly, and his papa sniffed.

"Perhaps one of these days we will get hold of something that is worth nothing," he said, "and then we will fire them along, but at present I am not feeling in a philanthropic mood, my boy. The expense of this house is—"

And he launched forth into a lecture upon the high cost of living, the rising prices, the unreasonably exorbitant servants, and Mr. Julius, who had endured all this before, listened without hearing.

On the following morning Mr. Julius Mothenstein was waiting in a friend's office in Birching Lane. It was an office in which he had previously negotiated many interesting sales, and it was admirably suited, for there was a small room leading off, behind the door of which his father sat and listened, and could, by a judicial signal of coughs, agree or disagree with the proposals which his son made on his behalf.

Presently a visitor came, a tall bronzed young man in a grey suit and a negligé shirt, and a large white hat. He was, explained Mr. Julius, a typical Australian, though exactly what distinguished an Australian from other members of the British race he might have found a difficulty in explaining.

"Mr. Samuel Soames," said the cheery visitor, though his Christian name happened to be Anthony.

"You have some shares you wish to offer us," said Mr. Julius in his best judicial manner. "Of course, I understand that these things are comparatively worthless, but my firm likes to make a speculation now and then."

"So I understand," said Anthony, producing from a black bag a large wad of share certificates.

Julius took the first of the bundles, read the first, and shook his head with a pitying smile.

"West Australian Lead and Spelter," he read. "I don't think they are very much use to us, Mr. Soames."

"Then we won't discuss it any more," returned Anthony, reaching out for the bundle.

There was a warning cough from the next room.

"Of course," said Mr. Julius, "we are always prepared to take a risk. What were you asking for these?"

"Half-a-crown a share."

Mr. Julius shook his head.

"Too much," he said. "Those shares are absolutely unmarketable, and they would cost us twenty-five thousand pounds. Now, I'll tell you what we will do, Mr. Soames. We'll buy these, which are so much waste paper, at a shilling a share."

"You will buy them for half-a-crown," said Anthony, "or not at all."

"Very good," said Julius, with a shrug. "Good morning."

"Good morning," came the cheery response, as Anthony dropped the shares into his bag, snapped the fastening, and rose.

There were two urgent coughs from the next room.

"Now, why not be sensible," said Mr. Julius, obeying the signal. "Why not compromise? Suppose we offer you eighteen pence a share?"

"It is half-a-crown or nothing," said Anthony, firmly. "I have already been offered two and threepence by the Thames Investment Trust."

Now, the Thames Investment Trust was Mr. Mothenstein's most deadly rival. The Thames Investment Trust also appealed to the confiding small investor who wanted to find the royal road to riches, and there broke from the next room a most violent fit of coughing.

"Very good," said Julius, resigned. "Now suppose we give you a cheque dated next Monday week?"

"Suppose you give me a cheque dated last Monday week?" said Anthony. "Look here, Mr. Alexander, you either take these shares at the price I offer them without any monkeying about payment, and you either give me an open cheque which I can cash on my way home, or there's no deal."

Julius waited. There was a painful cough from the next room, and he took his cheque-book and filled it carefully.

"You nearly lost us business," grumbled Mr. Mothenstein, when the visitor had left. "And you could have got 'em for eighteen pence if you had gone the right way about it. However, let's get out the letter to the clients. The sooner we get rid of them the better. I have an idea they will fall for this, because there is a big rise in lead and spelter just now."

For three hours he and his son were engaged in literary composition, which made up in beauty of language for all that it lacked in accuracy. East, north, south, and west went these compositions, beautifully printed, expensively enveloped, and then the blow fell.

Mr. Mothenstein, junior, and his father were working together in their London office, and had just received by telephone the gratifying news that orders were pouring in. No sooner was the trunk call discharged than the telephone bell rang violently once more.

The speaker proved to be the editor of a small weekly financial paper of great instability and promise, who had reason to be grateful to Mothenstein, the elder.

"We have just had a letter come in," he said, speaking rapidly. "It looks like a circular letter that's been sent to all the financial papers."

"What is it about?" asked Mothenstein with a frown.

"It is about some shares that you're handling, some lead and spelter shares. The company's lease of the ground expires next week, and the fellow who has written this letter says they are not worth the paper they are printed on."

Mr. Mothenstein turned very white.

A loss of twenty-five thousand pounds was not sufficient to ruin him, nor, for the matter of that, ten times the loss, but it was quite sufficient to break his heart.

"We've been 'ad," he said when he broke the news to his son. "I ought to have known it. It's that Mixer what I've been warned about."

In his extreme agitation he made a mess of the language of his adopted country.

"Julius, my boy, we are going to get into trouble over this. This fellow will blow the gaff and make our names smell." (He did not say "smell," but employed a much more vulgar word.)

Mr. Mothenstein paced his office in an agitated condition of mind.

"It ain't the money, it ain't the money," he kept on repeating, "but this will mean ruin to the firm. I'd give him Mixer—I'd give him ten years! I'd hang him, the dirty low thief!"

Mr. Mothenstein rubbed his nose, as he sought vainly for a way out.

"Father," said Julius suddenly. "I've got an idea."

Mr. Mothenstein growled something derogatory to his son's idea, but listened.

"Why not?"

"Why not what?" said his father.

"We can stand the loss," said Julius, speaking rapidly, "but we can't stand the injury to the firm. That's the idea, isn't it?"

Mr. Mothenstein nodded.

"Well, why not send out these shares to-night to all our old clients. Tell 'em they are bonus shares. Distribute them all over the country, and pretend that they are going to go sky high. It will get the firm a good name, and get rid of any idea that we are swindling 'em.

"That's an idea," said Mr. Mothenstein slowly, "a grand idea. Get in the clurks."

The firm of Mothenstein worked very hard that night, and it was near midnight when the last of the bonus shares were posted, accompanied by a heliographed letter which breathed the spirit of benevolent affection which the firm of Alexander MacDougal, Mackintosh & Glenstuart held for their clients.

The Mixer heard the news of this free distribution, and laughed softly.

"The old beggar was too wily for me," he said. "It must have broken his heart to have distributed two hundred thousand shares, even though they were worth nothing. But, at any rate, he saves the reputation of his infernal bucket shop. I wonder what wild dreams the innocent recipients have about the West Australian Lead and Spelter Syndicate and its future?"

"Dreams that look like becoming realities," returned Paul. "Have you seen the papers?"

"What papers? What's in them?" asked Anthony suspiciously.

Paul left his game of patience, which Anthony's entrance had interrupted, picked up a newspaper, folded it with a particular heading uppermost, and handed it to the other, who read:—

ROMANCE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

rich vein of gold found in a derelict lead mine

"worthless" shares now selling for £3

The message was dated from Western Australia, and read:—

"Some prospectors who have been working on mines which are the property of the West Australian Lead and Spelter Syndicate, which were yesterday hardly worth the paper they were written on, are selling freely at £3 to-day."

Anthony whistled.

"Well, I've got my share of the swag, anyway," he said.

"And I mine," murmured Paul, returning to his game of patience, for he and Sandy were never forgotten when their employer brought home the plunder,

"And there will be some happy hearts among Mothenstein's clients this night, Paul," said Anthony, complacently.